A Nifty Thrifty!

This is the completed desk area.  I  made the curtains
and the lamp was a redo as well.  The desk is an old english
pub table.  The 2 end leaves fit under the top and it can be
a square table. We purchased a cut piece of plexiglass
to protect the table's surface.  They will cut to size
at Lowe's if you ask nicely:>
 The geraniums are a new addition as of yesterday.
The arrival of cold weather prompted their move from the
front porch!

I have to say, I'm a bit discouraged about not having a nice Goodwill near my new house.  When we lived in GA, the Goodwill's were the best I have ever found.  They always had great things and the prices were very reasonable. If I were still there, when I needed a desk, I would just pop in and low and behold we could find something that would work.  Unfortunately, in SC this is not the case.  When we moved back here we needed a desk for the library/office.  I was unable to find one in the thrift stores so I ended up getting one at an antique store.  It looked great and I was excited, but when I got it home, it wasn't as big as I thought and didn't look right in the place I was going to put it. So, I thought I would try to sell it on Craig's list and start over.  The offers that came in were almost all scams so after giving it a month, I decided that the desk was here to stay.  I moved it to a different place and it looked pretty good there.  Then there was a new problem.  I was originally just going to use the wingback chairs that we already had for the desk.  They were not the right size and didn't look right.  So, off I go again to the thrift stores to look for a desk chair!  We do happen to have a thrift store that has an abundance of office chairs and most of them are only $5.  Em bought one earlier in the summer and did a great job fixing it up ( you can check out her blog to see it; you can find a link to it in my sidebar:>).  Mike has a real gift of finding things I just don't see, and once again he came through!  We had checked out all of the chairs and didn't find anything, and then Mike called me over to a back room and showed me a chair that was behind some other ones.  It was perfect and only $5.  We loaded it up and took it home.  In the midst of a garage redo (yes, my life is still in upheaval from moving; will it ever end?!)  we ripped it apart, repainted it, and recovered it.  I thought I would be able to use some of the fabric that I had from previous Goodwill trips, but none of them really seemed to fit the color scheme I was going for, so I found a lovely print at Hobby Lobby.  It cost more then I wanted to spend for it, but, hey sometimes you just have to splurge, right?!  It only cost about $12 so I think it was worth it.  I already had the paint on hand, so the chair cost about $17.00 when all was said and done. Now it's a lovely place for the two teacher's currently living here to work:>  Here's a few pics:

Before...

and after!